The Long and Winding Road
by Jane McCartney
Summary: Sometimes, when you at last find love, it can be too late; and sometimes, this lesson will come to you at the highest cost. (B/X)


Title: The Long and Winding Road  
  
Author: Jane McCartney  
  
Disclaimer: Despite numerous attempts to make it otherwise, none of them are mine. Joss and UPN and ME own 'em all.  
  
Feedback: Don't make me beg for it. Oh hell, whatever: pleeeease? Pretty please? It'll just take a sec from ya!  
  
Acknowledgments: Everyone who reviews and helps me. And my beta-reader, Stairway Man. You rules, T!  
  
Summary: Sometimes, when you at last find love, it can be too late. And sometimes, this lesson will come to you at the highest cost. (B/X)  
  
***  
  
"I'm getting married today."  
  
Her voice was blunt and reserved, but the hint of despair, the one she'd been trying to hide, didn't pass unnoticed to his ears. In a certain way, it seemed the only thing he could hear at all - her despair. It was calling for him, yet foolishly trying to push him away at the same time.  
  
The guy glanced down, but soon looked up to meet her hazel eyes again. "I know," came the nonchalant reply; blunt, reserved too.  
  
They were acting, and they both knew it. It was part of the game, their game - they could keep going all day and all night with it, but still they'd never been able to fool each other in the least. It was an act they had been performing for too many long years now, perfecting themselves every time, at every new dawn, at every exchanged glance.  
  
The guy shifted on the bed, and sighed. A silent, quiet gasp of air, yet so deep. She knew what was going on in his mind. The urge to yell, to cry, to make love, to fuck - all at the same time, powerful, too powerful. They knew each other well, maybe too well. Maybe.  
  
"We've got to stop doing this," the words caught in her throat for a second, in the form of a moan. But the actress quickly came once more to the fore, cold, recollected. "I can't see you anymore. We have to stop seeing each other."  
  
Her mask broke when he interlaced his fingers with hers. The touch was soft, gentle, yet so puissant. He was reading her soul, and she, his.  
  
The tears were barely contained as she barely whispered, "It's wrong."  
  
"It doesn't have to be," he retorted and stood up, passionate and urgent.  
  
She glanced at him for a moment and pierced her lips with her teeth, softly perforating the fold of flesh; too softly to make her body aware of the pain; but enough to bleed. Gently, gently the blood was being drained from the wounded flesh. Maybe too gently.  
  
Blood. Oh God, there had been so much blood then... no, no, she had to get that thought out of her mind. She couldn't think about it without crashing.  
  
Feeling her body shake slightly, she wrapped her arms around herself and got up, moving to the other side of the room. Mere seconds had passed by since he'd uttered the words she knew she wanted to hear, but yet knew she shouldn't want. It had seemed more. It had seemed like centuries, millennia, and perhaps an eternity.  
  
"It's wrong," she insisted stubbornly, not crying, yet he'd known better. He knew that tears stained her soul; he'd always read her too well before.  
  
He looked down and smirked, yet there was nothing in his smile. Not sorrow, or sadness. Not happiness or bitterness. Nothing. He got up too, but walked to the opposite side of the room, leaning his body against the door.  
  
"Does he make you smile? Does he make you wanna wake up in the middle of the night, just to watch the person you love sleep? Does he make you feel alive?"  
  
The statement was sudden. His voice was cracking slowly and the words were raw and angry, too angry. He ruefully stepped back, seeming ashamed. She thought he should be. She needed him to be; it was wrong. She needed him to know that too; she needed him to convince her it wasn't right.  
  
"He doesn't make me feel sad," she said mechanically, bitterly, looking at a blank spot between him and the floor.  
  
She hadn't noticed it before, until this moment. His virile, masculine hands were rested upon her petite, smooth ones, lost in his larger grip; their fingers interlaced strongly, yet so mildly. He perceived it too, and let his hands leave hers. Suddenly, the air was chilly again. She knew he had felt it too.  
  
"Is he a good man?" he asked, and for once his feelings seemed a little cloudy to her. She tried unsuccessfully to read him. She knew her failure should mean something good, should mean they were finally disconnected after all, yet she couldn't make herself feel anything but a twinge in her heart - harsh, powerful, burning.  
  
She absent-mindedly nodded her head up and down, slowly, with a small, musing smile. "Yeah, Matt's a great guy. He loves me, you know."  
  
"Is that enough?" the question was truthful, care-worn, and cautious.  
  
She eyed him for a drawn-out moment, but averted her hazel eyes when she said, "He brings me coffee in bed sometimes. He knows how many spoonfuls of sugar I like, and that I don't like those junky box juices, so he goes out to buy me fruit to make it. He cares about me."  
  
Her beautiful features held a smile; but it was a poor, desperate one.  
  
"We don't have our own song yet, but I guess that'll come with the time. We're still learning about each other, but that's normal, isn't it? I mean, not all couples get to be Romeo or Juliet, or, or Harry and Sally, right?" she amended hurriedly, cracking a little and with a hint of urgency. Her pleading look was seeking his confirmation; still, deep down, no supportive words, nods or affirmations could fool her.  
  
It was his eyes that told her the truth. She knew it would be a tragic mistake, but before she could stop herself, she was drawn to those pair of deep, tender brown orbs with an intensity so strong that she thought she couldn't breathe anymore; and, for a moment, she desired what she really shouldn't. That it would all end - all the fear, the regret, the endless torture, all of it - it'd all come to an end, for once and for all.  
  
He knew what was going on inside her. She knew that; just like she knew what was going on inside him too. She had taken the time, too much time, to get to really know and to fall in love with him; but when she did, she knew from the very first moment there was no going back. She was everlastingly bound to him, in the same way he was to her.  
  
Love had often come to her in a tricky tangle, too tricky. But this was a new, dangerous, almost maddening passion. She felt warm and whole; but, without him, his embrace, his kiss, the touch of his skin against hers, she felt cold, too cold. She'd realized it was wrong then, but she couldn't stop herself. Like she said, there was no going back.  
  
It took them seven years to fall in love and rediscover their love for each other, a time that was ageless if compared to the age when she'd lost him. Too rapid, too unfair, too brutal. She thought she'd die then. She remembered how she had wanted to die; she remembered all those days and nights that ticked away, with the wish of death being the only thing that moved her.  
  
"Mickey and Minnie."  
  
His words brought her back to stare at him, and the thoughts in her mind vanished away - always present, but once again hidden.  
  
"What?" she replied confusedly, caught off guard for an instant.  
  
And then it hit her. Romeo and Juliet, Harry and Sally. It was a game they'd used to play, a silly game actually, but their own unique game nevertheless. They'd be lost in each other's embrace, and could go on all night playing it.  
  
Despite himself, he continued in a lively way, encouragingly; a gracious, playful grin on his features. "Danny and Sandy. Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Han Solo and Princess Leia. Batman and Robin. Tom and Jerry. Adam and Eve. Marc Antony and Cleopatra."  
  
"Lennon and Ono," she added friskily, smiling despite herself too, her eyes blurry yet not carrying the austere sadness without the support of a slightly overpowering happiness anymore.  
  
"Lennon and McCartney," he shot back daringly. His steps, just like hers, slowly advancing to the other person, both of them moving absent-mindedly.  
  
The tears, perhaps sad, perhaps happy, perhaps both kinds of tears mixed as one, streamed down her face sluggishly; the coherence of her voice shaken by the choice of her words. "Bonnie and Clyde."  
  
A chuckle. "Homer and Marge," he retorted. His voice, slightly wobbly too.  
  
She was only bare inches away from him, when she stopped. "Barbie and Ken."  
  
"Samson and Delilah," he replied quickly, smartly.  
  
"Buffy and Xander."  
  
Between sobs came her whisper, so low and scared. Soft yet harsh; passionate yet fearful, shaky yet so full of rightness. The world seemed to have stopped spinning for a proverbial minute.  
  
He thought she'd never looked so fragile before. He could barely see the lively hazel of her eyes behind the hazy shield of the tears, but he didn't need to do that to sink into her essence, her soul and her heart instantly.  
  
"Buffy and Xander," he repeated it while his finger traced her face slowly and softly, from the forehead to her lips.  
  
Her mouth opened to say something; what, she didn't quite know - a yell, a growl, a sob, a whisper, the urges of her soul; but it was silenced by his gentle finger on her lips immediately.  
  
"Is this real?" her voice was scared and low, too low, too desperate. "Am I making this up?"  
  
With a soft kiss on her lips, and another one on her forehead, he gently laid his forehead on hers and whispered, "Does it matter?"  
  
All at once, she was mad, really mad, but there was no power to scream left in her.  
  
"It's not fair!" a shriek - pained, weak, enraged. Her fists were punching him on the chest with no strength, her Slayer power seemingly vanished while she sobbed, "It's not fair... you were so selfish; it was my fight - mine! You promised we'd be okay, you promised you'd always be there, you promised..."  
  
"Shh, Buff," he whispered, stroking her long locks of golden hair softly. He fought not to let the tears fall down his face. "You've got to understand it was the right thing to do; you still had so much to do in your life... good things, Buffy, beautiful things."  
  
Eventually, she got tired and her arms started hanging loose, her whole weight supported by his body. Her words were completely disordered, "That blow was mine, but you took it instead... you abandoned me, Xander; and you promised you never would! Oh God, there was so much blood, too much; it drenched my shirt, and then I could feel it on my skin, and then it was on my hands, and my hands were on your face, and I stained your face with it..."  
  
"I never abandoned you, baby. You have to understand that," he muttered painfully, closing his eyes tightly to support her pain, to prevent himself from collapsing too.  
  
"How the hell did you think I could handle it without you? When you took that blow, you weren't saving me - it was the exact opposite! God, you're so stupid, so selfish! I hate you, Xander Harris, I hate you, I hate you," she kept on mumbling with rage and passion, the tears drained from her now and she was lost in his embrace.  
  
He broke their embrace and, thus, made her stand up.  
  
The words came in a passionate voice. "No, you don't hate me, Buffy. You love me; we love each other, and we'll meet again eventually," he said firmly, ardently, even when his voice was serene and calm. "And when we do, we'll make a ravishing paradise together like the one in that movie with Robin Williams. Maybe we won't have the whole tint thing 'cause it's kinda a little icky, but we'll get old and wrinkly together, 'cause we're soul mates, and there's nothing that can change that."  
  
"Ten years," she began hauntedly, "I spent ten years without you. You know, I don't like orange juice at all, actually. I missed watching those funny cartoons on Saturday mornings, embraced in your arms. You telling me I had halitosis in the morning, but still you'd kiss me anyway. You holding me, making love to me, and telling me we were gonna be OK, 'cause we had each other. That's so long, just too long."  
  
Her voice was cold, imperturbable now. "It's not fair we took so long to find each other, when we were under each other's nose the whole time. It's not fair I lost you so quickly when I found you after so much time, and it's not fair I've got to live without you now. What kind of freakin' sadist God can make me believe in Heaven after all that?"  
  
"Angel, Cordelia, Riley, Anya, Spike - they were all important," he said meaningfully. "We needed them to show us the road to each other. But we made it. We made it, Buff. We found each other," with the last sentence, his voice was almost a whisper; too painful, but yet so essential for Buffy.  
  
"We don't even have a song," she chuckled bitterly. "Matt and I, we don't have a song. So he can't sing it to me with a cheesy voice on Sundays, 'cause you decided we had to commemorate all our anniversaries on a weekly basis. I don't even like my wedding dress, ya know? I, oh shit, I'm being so selfish to him."  
  
"Did you know we didn't even get to have a one-year anniversary together?" she then said out of the blue, and the words fell on him harshly.  
  
Suddenly, she looked at him with a pale, shocked face, as the realization came to her as if it was a new one, even when she'd had it all those nights, ever since he'd left her.  
  
He sighed, passing a hand through his dark hair. "You don't have to live without me, ya know. Come with me. I need you, Buffy. I need my Juliet."  
  
His eyes were pleading, heartfelt and urgent. The only sound for her, for a endless moment, was the one of her frenzied heartbeat.  
  
And then, suddenly, she noticed it was raining. The drops of crystal-clear water seemed like sharp needles cutting through the air with a rage and a will; so quickly that, in a few seconds, their hair and skin and souls were soaked by the furious, dirty rain.  
  
Their hands, linked together, were drenched and they weren't in the living room anymore. Rather, they were in a huge field, where a colorful blanket of flowers formed a perfect counterpoint to the suddenly dark, cloudy sky.  
  
And then, everything started to become painfully clear. The smirk that appeared on her lips was bitter, and before being bitter, it was almost physically heartbreaking.  
  
The same words, spoken through many different forms, but with the same ending, no matter what - that he needed her. The meaning of those three little words was so marvelous and lucid to her that, along with every flash of sunlight bathing her face in the morning, she'd wake up with this sole wish, this unique will and craving.  
  
She had to be with him.  
  
He needed her. It'd be so quick that she'd not even notice. She could do it in a blink of an eye, and there'd be no more pain, never again. They'd be together once and for all, as they should've been since the beginning.  
  
She wanted to have their one-year anniversary, and every following other, until the end of time. She wanted to dance the lost dance with him, and so desperately that the idea had crossed her mind many times. He needed her. She needed him. They needed each other, and basically the last barrier had to fall.  
  
Perhaps some pills would do the trick. She'd just fall asleep and then be with him again. Simple. Painless. Quick.  
  
Dawn would understand. Giles would understand, and Willow would too. She'd have been dead all those years ago anyway.  
  
And she'd finally stop pretending. She needed to have a song; she needed to feel the fire of a kiss, his kiss, upon her lips. She needed the cheesy Heaven without the icky paint, and someone to hold her and make her feel complete.  
  
Matt was a good guy, a great guy actually, and he'd understand. He'd understand that she had to stop pretending, and he'd find a decent woman who wouldn't lie and use him.  
  
Everybody would understand. Everybody but him. The real him.  
  
The sudden awareness was painful, too painful. Her mind, tricky and merciless, had played the same trick on her for all those years, every time she'd close her eyes and give in to the oblivion of the land of dreams.  
  
It couldn't be him. It couldn't be her Xander, her Romeo, her other half - because he'd never ask her to do it. He'd never ask her to give up her life, no matter what, because that was all his love was based on.  
  
He believed in her. More than his hero, she was his Juliet too, and he'd never ask her to sneak off and find the easy way out. He had sacrificed himself for her to keep on living, to be strong for him, and to the world - she was still needed to fight the good fight, and somehow he knew it.  
  
And, looking at the pleading eyes of this fake Xander, a pure hallucination of her mind, an illusion her dreams had created based on her own secret thoughts, another realization would always come to her, just like they did every night.  
  
She had to let him go. She had to let her fantasies go. Because somewhere, she knew it not only by faith but by something stronger and beyond explanation, he was waiting for her. Not a product of a desperate, broken heart, but her true Romeo. Her White Knight, her other half.  
  
As she walked away, her steps at first unsure but afterwards confident and determined, a smile illuminated her features. A haunted smile, but then again a blissful smile too.  
  
His calls, the calls of her own agonized subconscious in truth, kept calling to her. "Buffy! Buffy, don't do this, I'm real! Damn it, Buffy, please, don't do this! I love you, we should be together, don't fight this, don't be so damn stubborn! I'm real, can't you see? I need you!"  
  
Eventually, his voice would get weaker and a hopeless tone would replace the one of despair as his figure slumped, standing isolated in the flowering field, or whatever other scenario they'd be at in every new dream.  
  
And before waking up to the harsh reality of life, the last whisper, no matter at what distance they were separated from each other, would always echo in her years. And she knew it wasn't a fake product of her pain, the despair of her subconscious any longer.  
  
"I'm waiting, Buffy."  
  
***  
  
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